


existences grazing there suspended

by nextraordinaire



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextraordinaire/pseuds/nextraordinaire
Summary: A month is too long a time to wait to offer an apology. Erik doesn’t know if it’s too late to beg for forgiveness.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	existences grazing there suspended

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt from [pearlo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o) from like five years ago. re-posted (and slightly edited) from tumblr.
> 
> enjoy! ♡

A month is too long a time. It’s too long a time to spend in the monotone rhythm of scraping by; too long a time to overhear lovemaking neighbors; too long a time to wait for something horrible to happen; too long a time to wait for the courage to do something about it.

It’s too long a time to wait to offer an apology.

Erik doesn’t know if it’s too late to beg for forgiveness.

He ends up buying the last book from Charles’ syllabus with money he doesn’t have to go with the letter. Wraps the whole thing in a few layers of newspaper and posts it before he can change his mind, hoping to God that he’s got the right address still. That Charles truly went back home. Not only because of how much he spent on the book, but how it might be thrown away.

And there are a lot of things Erik has endured, but that thought is enough to make his stomach roll.

Their mattress has a dent in it, and the broken springs creak as he lies down. His feet are cold from the walk home from the post office. February in New York isn’t easy on the hardiest of people, but when you haven’t eaten in a while, it’s even worse. The cramps in his stomach are getting painful, but this time – this is the last time – he’ll push through. 

He turns onto his back, warming his hands in his armpits and watches the way his breath curls in the air.

If he turns his head, the pillow case still smells of lavender. So he doesn’t. He keeps to his side, just as he promised the first time Charles ordered him up; tired of listening to him chattering teeth from the living room sofa. To buy another bed had seemed like a waste of money that could be spent on paying his half of the rent. But Charles simply wouldn’t have it and had threatened to throw Erik out if he didn’t get over himself and stopped sleeping on the couch.

Reaching out to the nightstand, he takes Charles’ copy of  _ The Single Hound _ he always keeps there; its words are since long devoid of meaning. 

Instead, between the pages: Charles’ letter.

The crease where it was folded is so worn by now, Erik is afraid it might fall apart if he opens it again. That was what made him write something back. That, the rent and Charles’ upcoming birthday.

A physical reminder, a time-limit, and perhaps, an enunciating circumstance.

Erik swallows against the thickness in his throat, closing his eyes. They feel heavy behind his eyelids, pulsing and stinging as if inflamed inside the sockets. 

A year ago, he was lying under Charles, right here; kissing, touching and exploring him like he wasn’t supposed to per so many things, but damn well did anyways. Let his fingers rake down Charles’ smooth skin; over his sensitive scalp, just hard enough to make him moan. Because anything else would have been a shame, and Erik had been – and still was – willing to break any rule to have Charles panting against him: pulling at his hair, biting his throat, pushing inside him, filling his whole being until his lungs gave out.

Opening his eyes, Erik folds the letter closed again, not looking as he puts it back in the book. He’s memorized it. No need to read it again; to remind himself of how long it has been since he’d stumbled in through the door and found it left on the dresser and Charles gone.

Charles writes in longhand. Looping letters turned into eloquent sentences that have taken the grit and grime of reality and polished them into something ethereal; something worthwhile and full of hope for the future.

Something they both know Erik sorely lacks.

Sleep won’t come, so he rips his pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Lights one; sucks the smoke in. Stares out the window and the dying light. It was a foolish idea to buy that stupid book.  _ Leaves of Grass _ , out of all things. One of his worse ones, including going back to Shaw when he couldn’t take the ultimatum anymore; the withdrawal scraping his bones clean. 

The one that started the whole thing – this irreparable, undefined thing hanging above him like a guillotine blade on a frying wire, sinking lower with each day.

But then again. Desperation turns people into awful beings. It’s no news. Edie had had a sister that sent letters when she was still alive. One that only ever kept in touch when she was begging for money from his mother, who barely had enough to feed them, let alone someone else. But since she had been the angel that she was, she had helped. 

Even if it meant that they had to shut off the heat for a day or two to save on bills.

When she’d died, the aunt had come after Erik instead. Playing the family card, meaning that the same blood ran through their veins. Jewish blood, Erik, and we need to stick together now. Never mind that it’s been twenty-odd years since the war and they’d offered her so many times to come stay with them. 

He doesn’t know how it all would’ve ended, if he hadn’t lived with Charles then. 

Charles, who had opened his wallet and given her a crisp ten-dollar bill.

As he got older, Erik always looked down on her. Not for being a sex worker, not for refusing their offers to let her stay with them, but for not being poor with dignity. Like his mother and the other families in the neighborhood. That she was supplying her own misery with company, instead of leaving it in the dust.

It hasn’t eluded him that he’s now doing the same thing.

Erik bites into the cigarette filter, pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. They throb helplessly under the pressure. He sniffs. Stabs the cigarette out, never mind that it’s not fully burnt down, and pulls his blanket over his head. 

Falls asleep clothed, head on the wrong pillow and doesn’t wake up until the mail falls through the slot with a thump.

* * *

  
It gets colder as the week goes by, and Erik doesn’t leave the apartment. The thermostat breaks or turns off, he doesn’t know which – but every day he wakes up with a cold nose and joints that ache from sweating and shivering all night through. He knows he’s missing classes – if the midterm hasn’t already been, that is – but he wants to make the most out of the days he’s got left before he’s out on the street.

Mostly, he sits by the oven; letting the small bit of warmth wash over him. It glows too, and sometimes he smokes a cigarette while he reads  _ The Single Hound _ . Charles had left a lot of books behind – either forgetting them in his haste, or planning to come back for them once he knew that Erik was truly gone – but Erik only reads this one.

Erik can’t blame him, even though a small part of him does; hates Charles for being a coward and leaving Erik here with nothing else to do but to wait for Shaw to come back and claim his prize, whatever that might be. He has a few ideas of what might come, none of them pretty. Especially not with how Shaw’s eyes had raked over him that last time; the hunger glinting as he handed Erik the free hit of junk he didn’t even use.

On the last Friday before the inevitable eviction, he spends the night and half the morning throwing up; the effects of going cold-turkey making themselves known. But then he gathers the energy to dig out the last of the flour and bake a half-hearted challah. It smells divine after days of not keeping down food, never mind the nausea still lurking in the back of his throat. He swallows it down, because he needs to eat as much as he can, nausea be damned.

He’s lying on the floor – smoking and staring into the ceiling as the bread bakes – when there’s a knock on the door.

Jerking up, Erik peers out into the hallway. He sends out his senses for anything metal that is close. A knife flies out of the stand and he grabs it in one hand. It’s nothing he’ll be able to truly defend himself with – not against Shaw’s nuclear power – but he won’t go down without trying. 

There is a limit to how complacent you can become.

The knock comes again, insistent this time. Erik doesn’t move. His heart hammers, like a small, panicked animal, in his chest.

“Erik?”

Charles’ voice sounds hollow through the door. But it is  _ his _ voice – clear, if a bit hoarse, like he’s down with a cold. 

Tired, but still there.

Knee joints creaking, Erik gets to his feet. Letting his gift spool out again, it immediately zeroes in on the familiar metal of Charles’ watch. It had been his father’s, and the only thing that Charles had carried with him from his childhood home.

The door handle rattles for a moment, then stops.

“Erik, I know you’re in there.” Charle’s voice is closer now, a bit muffled. “It’s just me, I promise.”

Holding on to the door jamb for balance, Erik stumbles down the hall. Drops the knife somewhere along the way, and then he stops just inside the door. A hand on the handle, he can almost feel Charles’ body heat through the wood.

“Erik. Open the door, please.”

Swallowing, Erik turns the tumblers in the lock with a twist of his wrist and pulls it open.

For a moment, he can’t do anything. On the other side, Charles looks almost as bad as Erik feels. The black circles under his eyes are deep enough that something could’ve crawled in there and died. He’s got a backpack and seems gaunt somehow, his lips are dry and white. But his eyes are clear and as blue as they should, even if they are dull with lack of sleep.

They’re also hard as ice. “You really stopped?” he asks, jaw set.

“Yes.” Clenching his jaw, Erik averts his eyes. “Threw it in the river.”

“All of it?”

Charles' voice is cold; there’s no room for compromise. Erik is glad, despite everything, that he doesn’t have to lie anymore.

“Yes. Nothing left,” he says, quiet, still not looking at Charles. If he does, he might just dissolve into the air, like a mirage or a hallucination. “I won’t get more.”

“I – “Charles starts, just as a woman comes out of one of the other apartments. She passes them before disappearing down the stairs, heels clicking against the floor.

Erik looks after her until she’s gone. “Did you get the book too?” he then says.

“Of course,” Charles replies, tilting his head a bit. His mouth is still thin.

Erik presses on. “Was it the correct edition?

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“What about it?”

Erik doesn’t say he had all intent to buy one final, too large hit for that money – the letter crumpled and forgotten in the inner pocket of his jacket – but instead ran into the first bookstore he saw and bought the book; knowing it was what Charles needed for his next course.

“Nothing.”

“No, Erik, it has to be something.” Charles shakes his head, obviously irritated. “Your mind is – “

Erik raises his hackles. “I’ve told you not to read it.”.

“You’ve lied to me too many times,” Charles says. “I’m not risking it again.”

Erik scrubs his hands over sore eyes. “Risking what?” he spits. “Your reputation? Your –”

“No, Erik,  _ your _ life.”

His heart stutters. A stutter that blows him wide open like a patient on an operating table. It even gets a bit hard to breathe, but he manages, somehow, to get enough air to snort. 

“Yeah, right,” he sniffs. “I don’t believe you.”

Charles’ face hardens. “Erik – “

Once the first words are out, they just keep pouring. “You left me here. Don’t you get it?” Erik spits. “I can’t just cut it – I haven’t been able to keep food down in a  _ week _ . You can’t just – “ His hands are shaking now, anger and everything inside bubbling up. “I’m out on the street on Monday.”

There are holes in the story, but what doesn’t come out in words blares to through his mind like a freight train –  _ Shaw’s eyes, looking for that last, final hit, remembering Charles’ birthday instead, a week of shivering and sweating a runny nose and stomach cramps from hell – _

“God, Erik,” is all Charles says, his eyes wide, and then he’s gathering Erik up against him; never mind that his bones must be cutting into the inside of Charles’ arms. “ _ God _ .”

A part of Erik wants to resist, scream and shout that Charles is too late, that there’s nothing left to treasure here. Shaw is coming for him, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

Then Charles’ fingers curl around the back of his neck, steady and calm, and the anger drains right out of him. Instead, he claws his fingers into Charles’ jacket, and just soaks in his scent; breaths coming in staccato bursts. His chest hurts as Charles carefully pushes them inside the apartment again, closing the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Erik breathes. “I – “

“Shh, I know.”

Erik shakes his head, tries to get his emotions under control. It’s like a floodgate has been opened, and the deluge is all-consuming, drowning him. Shivers wreck his body and he doesn’t know if it’s the chills or his breathless gasps that cause them. All he knows is that the crook of Charles’ neck smells of lavender and that a hand is petting his greasy hair, putting strands back in under his knitted hat.

Charles guides them down onto the mattress. Slowly, Erik’s breath returns to his lungs.

“I didn’t want to leave,” Charles then whispers, his hand stilling. “But you frightened me, Erik. You still do.”

“I know.”

“And it seemed to be the only thing to do, at the time. Especially since you went back to – I’m not letting you live on the street,” Charles concludes, fingers starting up their motion again, stroking behind his ear. “He won’t find you if you’re with me. But if we’re to live together, you can’t – you  _ will  _ go with me to the clinic tomorrow, or I’m not coming back again, you understand? If you go to him or anyone like him of free will ever again, I’m not getting you out.”

A knot of fear both loosen and tightens in his chest, but he nods. Charles’ hands drop down to his sides and he pulls Erik closer. Close enough that Erik feels a heartbeat even through the duffle coat. He presses his lips against Charles’ neck, right over his pulse, to make sure he’s really there. 

Under him, Charles’ shivers like nothing has changed.

It lasts for a moment, but then Charles pulls away. “Don’t do that,” he chastises without venom as he pushes Erik away. “You have to promise me you’ll go willingly. I can’t watch you kill yourself anymore, you hear me?”

His voice is soft. Erik swallows; forces himself to look Charles in the eye, not hiding anything anymore.

“I do.”

Charles nods tightly, and the smell of the challah makes its way in from the kitchen. It’s a long way from good – but it lets Erik hope, if so only for a second, that maybe, perhaps, there is a good end to all of this.


End file.
